Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 1.djvu/207

Rh

 Obstreperous conduct of prisoners.—Entrance offices—Corridor.—Courtyard and fountain.—Prisoners in the second storey.—Want of provision for the destitute.—Misery of lower classes.—Chapel.—Custom before an execution.—Prisoners employed as scavengers.—Prison for females.—Groups in court-yard.—A mock priest.—A jail instructor.—Quarrel in the water.—An aged gamester.—An ignorant devotee.—Obscene singing.—The basket-maker.—Obtrusive mendicants.—Officers' salaries.—Prison statistics for one year.

prison discipline of Mexico affords a lively comment on the very various and opposite experiments which have been tried in such institutions, in the different civilized countries of the world.

Within the spacious court-yard of the Mexican prison—the Accordada—may he seen such a horde of wretched and degraded male criminals as may challenge the lowest grades of